The sermon, based on Mark chapter 9, begins with Jesus teaching His disciples about His impending death and resurrection, emphasizing the importance of understanding His mission. Despite witnessing the transfiguration and the glory of God, the disciples quickly revert to arguing about their own greatness, showcasing their foolishness and pride. The sermon highlights the irony of their behavior and draws a parallel to modern believers who, after experiencing God's glory, often fall into pride and self-righteousness. Jesus redefines greatness in His kingdom as humble service to the least, illustrated by His act of placing a child before the disciples. The speaker calls for repentance, urging believers to recognize their own weaknesses and to follow Jesus' example of humility and service. True greatness is achieved through humility, dependence on God, and serving others. The sermon also contrasts Jesus' humility with the pride of Satan, emphasizing the ultimate exaltation of Christ and the downfall of the proud. The message concludes with a call to genuine repentance and humility, encouraging believers to seek forgiveness and to serve others as a demonstration of true greatness in God's kingdom.

Mark chapter 9 of the pew Bible you'll be able to find that on page 1006. We'll be beginning in verse 30. I'll ask the congregation to stand. God now speaks. Mark chapter 9, beginning in verse 30.

Thus saith the Lord. From there they went out and began to go through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know about it, for he, Jesus, was teaching his disciples and telling them, the Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he has been killed, he will rise three days later." But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask him. They came to Capernaum.

And when he was in the house, he began to question them. What were you discussing on the way? But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Sitting down he called the twelve and said to them, if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all, taking a child. He set him before them.

And taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me. And whoever receives me does not receive me but him who sent me may God bless the reading of his word amen let's try that again may God bless the reading of his word amen you may be seated. Thank you, saints. I want to make sure you get what Mark is wanting you to get when you read verse 34 I want you to answer these questions what did some of the disciples see up on top of the mountain at the beginning of chapter 9? What did the disciples see, at least three of them, what did they see at the top of the mountain of Jesus?

See the transfiguration. They saw the glory and greatness of God. And as they came down the mountain, at the base of the mountain, what did they see there at the base of the mountain? They saw sinfulness. They saw the depravity of man.

They saw their own unbelief. They saw their own smallness because of their sin. The awesome greatness of God on the mountain and the foolish smallness of man at the bottom, and what's the next thing these disciples start talking about? How great I am! You're supposed to read these things together, you know, from seeing the exalted glory and greatness of God and the lowly weakness of men, to them arguing about the greatness of men.

Who was the greatest among them does that sound foolish to you yes it does I read it you guys are nuts what blind men blind I mean we look at these people, we look at these disciples and we say, what kind of people see the greatness of Christ and the weakness of themselves and then immediately boast in themselves. Fools do that kind of stuff, don't they? What kind of person does someone have to be who sees the glory of Christ and the sinfulness of themselves and immediately seeing His glory and seeing His sin puffs himself up. What kind of person? People like you.

People like you. Like me. A person like you who confesses their sins on Sunday morning together with all of the Lord's people, a person who sees the greatness of God's mercy in light of their weaknesses, and their failures, and their shortcomings, in light of their sin, a person like you who then heads out those doors and before you even leave the parking lot, this stuff starts coming out of your heart. Can you believe that family in our church? They don't homeschool their children with the same curriculum that we do.

We're so much older than them. Can you believe that woman in our church? She serves her family inorganic food. She gives her children unpasteurized milk. They don't even have one vial of essential oils.

None! I am so much holier than she is. Perhaps this comes out of your heart. Can you believe that family in our church? They dare to vaccinate their children.

We are great and they are not. Did you hear what that brother or sister said? I'm not sure they have my pet theological doctrine as nailed down as I do. They're different than me. I wonder if they're even saved because, I mean, how can you be that wrong on that particular doctrine?

Their theology is not as good as mine. I am so much greater than them. Does that ever come out of your heart, coming and leaving those doors? You just ascended the mountain of the Lord on the Lord's day. You saw His glory in the Son Jesus Christ heralded from His Word.

You just confessed your sins together. You just confessed your great weakness and your great inability and in exchange for your weakness and inability, you receive the gracious gift of assurance of pardon because of the greatness of God. You ascend that mountain, and you see His greatness, meet the desperate need of your frailty for you a sinner. And you turn around from that mountaintop and head out those doors like you've done something special. Are you kidding me?

Like you're some kind of hero? That's ridiculous, isn't it? Who's the hero when you leave this building? Christ is. Not you.

You're the culprit. You're the evildoer that the hero, instead of going and saving the good guy, the hero named Jesus went to save the villain. You turn around from the mountain of hearing God's Word declared to you, and you leave this building thinking much of yourself. You're like that slave who was forgiven that great debt from his master. Do you remember that parable?

The slave, he owed a great debt to the master. And this great, kind master looked at the slave and pardoned all of it. And that same slave that same day went to a fellow slave who owed him a debt. And that slave in light of the great debt being forgiven him choked out the other slave saying, pay me or I'll throw you in prison. You do that.

You are like that slave. When you say in your heart, when you leave those doors, I'm far better than you. I'm greater than you. I'm more holy than you because of this, because of my schooling methodology, my eschatological view. I'm greater than you because of the way I eat.

I'm because of my birthing decisions. That's a big one. And you guard yourself. That's a big one. I'm greater than you because of my medical preferences or my lifestyle choices.

That is foolish. The fool does that. So I encourage you this morning, repent of such foolishness. Repent of this spirit of haughtiness and pride that you, you share with these disciples. You know how easy it is to read this passage?

It's going, oh, you idiots! And such were some of you. And such are some of you. Let us repent, friends. This passage, These words from Jesus, this sermon is for people like us.

It's for people like you. Jesus is the hero. Jesus is the only one whose name should be exalted leaving this building. And as such, Jesus in this passage gets to define what true greatness is in his kingdom he's the king of the kingdom is he not so the king gets to decide what greatness is and here's his definition I'll put it up here for you. Here is greatness according to Jesus and His kingdom.

Humble service to the least. It's a very, very simple passage this morning. It's one of the most simple passages so far we've got to and mark. It's just really simple. And you know the danger of simple passages?

You gloss over them. You make fun of the disciples and go out those doors and be just like them. So here's the bottom line. This sermon this morning, this passage, here's what you're to see. You are to see the foolishness of these disciples who have just seen the greatness of God on the mountain, and they've seen their weakness at the bottom of the mountain, and yet they find themselves arguing about who is the greatest.

We're to see their foolishness, and then we are to be convicted, you are to be convicted of your own. And then you're to look to Jesus Christ who is the only way of pardon Trust Him and cling to Him in humility That's it simple and Then you're to read verse 35 you're gonna you should recognize the lesson for us all. Jesus defines true greatness in verse 35. If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. Verse 35 is the point.

Jesus defines greatness in His Kingdom because Jesus is God. So Jesus says to you this morning, brother and sister, to be great in My Kingdom is to be the humble servant of all. To be last here on earth is actually to be first in my kingdom. And we see that this morning in two simple ways. Two distinctives of greatness in the kingdom of God.

Two distinctives that separate the Kingdom of God from the Kingdom of darkness that we used to belong to. Two distinctives that contrast our old definitions of what it meant to be great when we were unconverted, unregenerate, with the new order of things in Jesus Christ's kingdom. Two distinctives. And that first distinctive is found in verses 30-32, where Jesus teaches His disciples once more about His death and resurrection. You're going to see in these verses that the king of the kingdom humbled himself.

He holds out to you that the way of greatness in his kingdom is through humble service of others. And it is the king of the kingdom himself who exemplifies that. Mark tells us in verse 30, Jesus and his disciples, they go out from the crowds after the little boy has been freed from his demon, and they're going through Galilee headed to Capernaum. Now That's significant in that Capernaum is kind of the HQ. And if you read throughout Mark, you would have noticed that every time they're headed to Capernaum, Jesus is teaching something really important.

And it says there, Jesus did not want anyone to know their whereabouts. Why is that? We keep hearing, keep reading about Jesus not wanting His disciples to tell others certain things. Why doesn't Jesus want anyone to know where they are? Well, one of the reasons is that since the middle of chapter 8, the ministry of Jesus has changed.

He's now far more personal with the disciples. And you can already see that in the earlier chapters in Mark, where he's already given the disciples private explanations of parables. But now we see in the second half of Mark's gospel, a real shift. Jesus is really concerned about instructing these 12 men. And he keeps telling them, don't tell anyone, I don't want people to know.

And that's because these disciples, they don't yet understand rightly. They still aren't seen correctly. They don't get who Jesus is and what Jesus has come to accomplish. Remember, that's Mark's gospel. Who he is, what he's come to do.

They're not understanding that. And so, because they don't understand the truth that Jesus has to suffer and die In order to secure salvation for sinners Right in order because they don't get that Jesus is not going to send them out to proclaim a false message when they don't understand it. So before they can go and teach the gospel in truth, they first must be taught themselves. They must be humbled. They must be humbled.

And truly, you're going to see this, the rest of Mark, truly, the rest of Mark is a humbling of the twelve disciples. What is Jesus teaching his disciples? Look at verse 31. He's teaching his disciples and telling them, the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men they will kill him and when he's been killed he will rise three days later now this is the third time that Jesus has told his disciples that he's going to come and die and then be raised this is already the third time in Mark's gospel He's told the disciples this is coming. When did he do that?

This is important The first time he told his disciples he was going to suffer and die and be raised was before the transfiguration What happened then Peter rebukes Jesus and Peter gets a rebukes from Jesus in exchange, right? Then the second time he tells the disciples about his coming death, it's right after the transfiguration, Jesus tells them on the way down the mountain that he has to suffer and die, resurrection glory would come after that, and then right after that, what does Jesus do? He rebukes the disciples for their unbelief two times of telling them about his coming death two rebukes and now here is Jesus again A third time telling them of what's to come, telling his disciples of his mission. And the text tells us in verse 32, they did not understand, and then what? They were afraid to ask him.

They were afraid. Have I helped you see why they might be afraid? Peter got rebuked when he pushed against the mission of Jesus. Then all the disciples heard about Jesus. All the disciples got rebuked by Jesus when they said that they were part of a wicked and perverse and unbelieving generation.

So the third time that Jesus starts talking about his coming death, they don't say anything, which should make sense to you, right? I mean you can probably hear Peter muttering in the background, you ain't gonna get you ain't gonna get me to say three, you ain't gonna get me to say something silly three times, Right? You ain't gonna get me to say, no Jesus three times. There's no way I'd say something silly three times. Well actually just wait Peter.

By the end of Mark, you'll do just that. Humiliation is coming for Peter. Humiliation is coming for the disciples. They were afraid, they did not understand, and they knew they deserved a rebuke, so they didn't say anything. But beloved this morning, let us not be like these disciples they did not understand but we have the spirit of God at work in us who has promised to what to give us understanding isn't that marvelous So let us this morning seek to understand what Jesus has indeed said in verse 31.

The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and when he's been killed he will rise three days later. Now you should note that Jesus is using his favorite title there, Son of Man. His favorite title. That's from Daniel chapter 7. And in Daniel chapter 7, what do we read?

We've been through this before. Quickly review. We read of the Christ, the Son of Man, He's coming up to the Ancient of Days. This is God the Son, Jesus coming up to God the Father. And what happens in Daniel chapter 7?

Again, we've read it a number of times since we've been in Mark's Gospel. In Daniel 7, the Father, the Ancient of Days, the Father crowns the Son with glory and honor and dominion. He gives the Son all authority over everyone and everything in heaven and on earth. That's what's promised in Daniel chapter 7. The Son of Man would come up, triumphant as victor over the world, which means that something had to first happen down here before he came up.

He had to die so that the world would be redeemed, so that the nations would be reconciled to Him, so that the evil one and his wicked binding power would be shackled, that the gospel would go forth to all the nations, so that indeed the knowledge of the Lord would begin to cover the earth as far as the waters cover the sea. But before that victory promised in Daniel 7, what did there have to be? There had to be a sacrifice. You know what redemption requires? Blood.

You know what victory costs you? Blood. And only the blood of the Son of Man promised from of old, fulfilled right here in these pages of Mark, Only His blood would be sufficient. Only His blood, God who took on flesh, only His blood would be sufficient to cover the sins of His people. Only His blood sufficient to ransom a people from every tongue, nation, and tribe to release from captivity, prisoners to sin.

Only God could do such a thing. Only God can bind the strong man and plunder his house. He must do that at the cost of his own life. And so God Himself, God the Son, He did that. And how did He do it?

How did He secure the salvation of sinners? He humbled himself. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Why? So that Daniel chapter 7 would be accomplished.

Sin defeated. Satan crushed. Salvation and victory accomplished and applied. So that the promise of Daniel chapter 7, that the Son of Man would be given the glory and the kingdom would be secured. And that at His name, at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow and every tongue would confess in heaven and on earth that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

You know what that is? I just read to you Daniel 7 there. That's greatness. Given a glory and a kingdom and a name that every knee in heaven and on earth will bow because of His glory. That's greatness, is it not?

How was that greatness achieved? Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Greatness was achieved through humility. The King of Kings laid down His life for His sheep. That's greatness.

You know, nobody took the life of Jesus away from Him. Nobody ever deserved not to die until Jesus came. And yet Jesus laid it down freely himself. Why? Because he loved you and gave himself for you by bearing a cross, being humiliated and suffering in your place.

He came not to be served, Mark 10, 45 tells us. He came not to be served, but to serve. How? By giving His life as a ransom for many, for you. And what did God do in light of that great humiliation of His Son?

God highly exalted Him. Highly exalted Him. That's greatness. The last, the one made weak, becoming the first and the strongest, and the strong in your life, your enemies, the world, the flesh, the devil, all becoming the weakest and the least, because Jesus was humiliated. Friend, Jesus did not simply call you into a life of humble service to Him.

Jesus does not simply call you to be humble and weak. Jesus calls you to follow Him. Jesus calls you to follow Him. And when you follow Him, what do you see when you look up to Him and you say, which way are you going? You see a pathway called the cross.

He exemplifies this command that He gave you in chapter 8, whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life, for my sake and the gospel's will save it. You got to become weak. I've been weak, Jesus says, before you. He's the greatest example of humiliation.

And what did God do? He exalted the Savior. So you want to be great in the Kingdom of God? Want to be? You want to be heirs with Christ?

You want to be glorified with Christ as Romans 8-17 holds out to you? Then get weak. Get lonely. Get leased. Stop paying attention to what the world tells you is greatness Look at your Savior Jesus defines what greatness is humble service to the least And brothers and sisters, I think this has so much to say to us this morning.

I want to tell you a personal illustration. One of the greatest gifts, one of the greatest blessings that my own physical father gave to me was his example of humility and weakness. When he would sin, perhaps he'd lose his temper, perhaps he'd spank too hard, or he'd be proud and get sharp with my mother. When he would sin, my father in conviction would gather the family together or sometimes would go to us in private And he would say to us in public and in private, I am sorry. I have sinned.

And I confess to you my sin, Grant. I confess to you my sin, Greg, Carson, and Kara. I confess to you my sin, Sheila, my wife. Please forgive me. My dad would say things like your father needs Jesus more than anybody else that I know.

And He has forgiven me, though I really don't deserve it. Would you forgive me, Son? Would you forgive me, wife? That's humility. That's confessing.

It's like being the least. That's confessing being the least. And you know what I think of my dad? My dad is the greatest man that I know. Greatest.

So there was a particular time in college where I had given myself over to sin. And I called my father up. I could not escape this sin. And I called him up, and I confessed my sin to him, and God delivered me. How do you explain a son who is proud and arrogant and given over to sin it seemed, he's hitting rock bottom, how do you explain that son calling up his own father who to him is the greatest man alive?

How do you explain that son in his pitiful state calling this great man and confessing his own obstinance and stupidity in sin. How do you explain that? It's easy, because I had a father who showed me what true greatness looked like. And I wanted to follow Him, even when it really hurt to tell Him the truth about myself. And beloved, indeed, God has truly done a great work in delivering your pastor years ago from that sin.

And He has turned that weakness of my sin into a strong dependence on Christ. And the reason for all of that is because a Father made it His business to show His Son what true greatness in the kingdom looked like. Humility, weakness, a great dependence on Jesus Christ. In weakness, friends, Christ is made strong. In weakness, there is greatness in the kingdom.

Do you know this? Fathers, Do you find yourself calling your children weekly, perhaps even daily, to repentance and faith in Christ? Do you find yourself rightly calling your children, repent and believe in the Savior? Do you? That's good.

And yet, have you never once yourself shown them that you too are weak and frail and just as desperately needy as they are? Perhaps in this room there is a failure of fatherhood because we are calling our children and our wives to places where we ourselves have never been. You cannot bring your wife, you cannot bring your children to a place where you yourselves have not tread yourself. If you have never demonstrated to your children and to your wife what true repentance looks like in confessing your sin to them when you sinned against them, how do they know what it looks like? How do they know what faith looks like?

You must show them. You must take them by the hand and say, come with your father, come with your husband. I am weak, but I know who is strong. Amen? And fathers, I don't want to be misunderstood.

There's a song about that. I don't want to be misunderstood. This is not an effeminate weakness I'm talking about here. This is a bold and courageous humility. I'm talking about real bravery, real true courage.

The kind that a knight takes up before he goes and slays the dragon. That kind of courage. Confessing your sin, being honest, demonstrating your need for Christ, that is the business of warriors. That's the business of men. That's the kind of weakness that Micah possessed when he said this prophecy so long ago in his book, rejoice not over me, O my enemies, for yes, I have fallen.

Yes, I have sinned. Yes, I am weak. But rejoice not over me, O my enemies, called sin and Satan and the flesh, for I will rise. God will raise me up. He will be my victory.

He will get the victory, for I am His, and in my weakness, He is strong. And I belong to the strong man. I belong to the strongest man. Jesus, that is courage. Fathers and mothers, I exhort you this morning, get weak.

Get leased. Be the last. Serve your family and this church in humility. You know what will happen? The kingdom will come in power, it says.

And you should do that this morning before you come to the Lord's table. If you need to confess your sin, you need to do it before you partake in this table. Don't take this table lightly. If you have unconfessed sin, during the singing, we have a whole song before we take the Lord's table, you go and get right with your children. You go and get right with your wife, with your husband, with a brother or sister in this church that you've slandered out those doors.

You go in weakness. You get right with people. And there will be great rejoicing in Christ. And in your weakness, this fellowship around this table, what would it be? Strong.

Unbreakable. Because it's because you get verse 35. You know, there are a number of women and men in this congregation, and I so appreciate this desire. They want to see our body grow in its ability to disciple one another. I've spoken to dozens of you in this room.

I praise God for each of you. You've come and you've said, I want to see us grow in discipleship. I want us to be in our homes more often. Yes and amen. I give thanks to God for such desires.

I long for those things with you, beloved. But let us be sure, brothers and sisters, that before we go out to disciple others, that we ourselves have practiced the very things that we wish others to do for us. Is there anyone in your life that you don't constantly find yourself correcting? Who are you submitting to? Who are you asking to invest in you?

Who are you deferring to and not arguing with when they pour their lives into you? Who is discipling you? If you cannot answer those questions, You cannot export to others what you yourselves do not possess. Before you go out and make disciples, you yourselves must be the least. That would be good, brothers and sisters.

If you haven't been weakened at least, if you've never given your heart to a posture of humility day in and day out for a season, then how can you lead anyone into greatness, into the maturity of Christ's kingdom? If you've never been there yourself. We've got to know the way to greatness in the Kingdom to lead others to it. And so you need to do some heart plowing this morning. What's in your heart?

What's been coming out is evidence of what's in. Ask God, God, please reveal to me my sin. Please show me where I need to be weak and least. And then obey Him. Your Savior Jesus was delivered into the hands of men and killed.

But then three days later, He was raised up, triumphant. Jesus is greatness, defined and exemplified, humble service. And humility, dependence upon Christ in your weakness, will always result in His triumph. Humility will result, if done in Christ, in exaltation. Humility if done in Christ will result in victory.

His power is truly made perfect in your weakness. Delivered over and killed, and it doesn't stop there, the text says. And then raised up. This is the kingdom, and this is the king of the kingdom. And he says to you brothers and sisters, follow me.

Follow me. And before I move on to the next point, I just briefly want to contrast. This is wonderful. I want to contrast this King, the King of Kings, the King of Light, Jesus, with the Prince of Darkness, the King of your Old Kingdom that you used to belong to in your sin. Have you thought about contrasting those two kings before?

Here is Jesus who humbled himself by dying for you. And he was exalted. But what about the prince of darkness? The prince of the power of the air, he exalted himself in Isaiah 14 and though he thought himself first, he was made last by Jesus and that serpent will one day be thrown into the lake of fire forever. You think about that.

Satan, the proud one, made the weakest one through the humiliation of the Son who is King of Kings now highly exalted. You see the switch? If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. That is what Jesus has done. And He calls you to do the same.

Christ ends this section of Scripture by sitting the 12th down. And who does He use as an illustration about what it means to be great according to God? He uses a child. Why a child? Why does Jesus say if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all, and then takes a child in his arms as an illustration?

Why does he do that? Because a child is weak. Because a child is often helpless. They are the least to so many, and we can even see in our culture today that children in our culture today are even weaker in a more vulnerable spot than they were perhaps even back then in Christ's day, because in our culture, unwanted children are simply discarded at the altar of Baal called Planned Parenthood. Jesus says, to receive children is to receive me.

Greatness in the kingdom is humble service to those who are least like these children. And You know what you have to be to help the least? You have to associate with and get with them. You have to become least yourself to serve them. You have to associate with the lowly.

To serve the least, you yourself have to become lowly and weak. That's the only way to get to them. It's the only way to serve them. And that's the point. Jesus takes this child into His arms and He says to the disciples, Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me.

And whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me, the Father. So if you're going to receive the Kingdom, if you're going to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God, You need to receive me, Jesus says. And you can only receive me if you're receiving someone like a child. And the only way to receive a child is to be weak and lowly. To associate yourself with the weak and helpless.

Now why is that? Well just a couple of days ago, just a couple of days ago, I was out in my front yard with my little girl, actually all four little girls, And we were turning over the landscaping blocks. Children, have you ever turned over a landscaping block and looked underneath it? A little cinder block? What do you see?

The crawlies. We would turn over a block and woo, and we'd be eyeball girls, so you can imagine the streets. But for the boys, you know, you've been trying to eat them. I haven't tried it. If you've never pulled up a cinder block, we'd love to have you over.

I'm serious, okay? But one of my girls, she pulled over a cinder block, children, and it landed on her foot, okay? Now my girls are young, and that cinder block is heavy. And that cinder block was all the way on her foot. She didn't cry, she didn't shriek, and she also didn't do this.

She didn't look up at me and say, daddy, No problem, I'll take care of this myself. She did not say that. She also didn't say, hey, I don't need you. She actually said the exact opposite of all those things. Cinder block falls on my daughter's foot.

She looks up at me immediately. Nope. She looks at me and she says, Daddy, I can't move. But you're strong. Could you help me?

I said in my head, That's a perfect sermon illustration. And beautiful. She, in her weakness, appealed to the strength of her father. And I, with great excitement, removed that block, that burden, and she went free. My daughter said, I'm helpless, needy, weak.

I need you. And friends, children, that is exactly how you are to receive Christ. That's how you are to look at Christ, young ones and old ones. You desperately need Him. You can't get the cinder block called sin off your heart unless you cry out to Jesus to do it.

Repent. Believe on Christ like this, like a child, and then be baptized. Entrance into the kingdom is not given to the strong, it's not given to the powerful, it's not given to those who are first and those who are greatest. Entrance into the kingdom is given to the weak and lowly, those least deserving and those last. Dear ones, Christ comes to you this morning in this passage and He simply declares to you, come, follow me and die.

Die to yourself. Christ bids you come and die to look outside of yourself and all your own merits and all your own power and to call it all useless, all vain, to confess your weakness, to confess your inability to say, I cannot save myself. I am powerless to reform myself. And in looking outside of yourself to see Him. And that Savior calls you to throw yourself upon Him and the fountains of His mercy.

Those fountains will never run dry. Do you know how many times you have broken open poisonous, broken cisterns and drunk the poison there of sin and you've never been satisfied? This Christ holds out to you streams of living water. And He says The only requirement is that you feel desperate enough to run and drink deeply from these streams that flow from me. Bring your sin, I'll bring the healing.

What an invitation. But to come, you have to see yourself as weak and least. Like a child, come to Him in faith. So friend, I would encourage you, I have to battle with this all the time. You and I, we need to let go of the idea that we must always be right.

We need to let go of the idea that we must always be strong. That is not greatness in the eyes of the master. Greatness is contriteness. Greatness is flying to the one who is powerful in the midst of your powerlessness. Greatness is humble service to the least of these as you know yourself to be the least deserting of God's favor of anyone who's ever walked this world.

That's what greatness starts to look like. And so if you're if you're hearing the sermon this morning and you're thinking to yourself, this would be so, so good for him to hear, for her to hear, for that family to hear. If you're saying, if only who I have in mind could take that sermon seriously, if that's you this morning, if you're saying that in your heart, then you have completely missed the point of this sermon. And I have failed you. The Word has not failed you.

I have failed you. But if in the miracle of the second minister called the Holy Spirit, if in the miracle of God's providence, you see that you are indeed the weak one, You are indeed the one who has far too much arrogant disciple in you. If you see that, if you say, I am like those disciples, then I invite you this morning to this day come afresh to Jesus Christ, your Savior. In humility and faith, come to Him. And you know what He will tell you?

You know what He will call you to you who come to Him in repentance and faith and humility, He will call you blessed. You doubt that? He says it in Matthew 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray together.

Amen. Heavenly Father, we bow in Your presence. We ask that Your Word would be our rule, that your Spirit, our Teacher, and your great glory are supreme concern. Oh yes, Lord. We ask these things through Jesus Christ.

Amen.